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Malak'Rafa vas Keelah Si'yah
Malak'Rafa vas Keelah Si'yah is a Sleepwalker for ark Keelah Si'yah. A member of the Yellow-9 team, his duties include monitoring life signs on the starship's 20,000 cryopods. Background Malak and the ark's Captain Qetsi'Olam vas Keelah Si'yah grew up together on the liveship Chayym, and were considered to be the only survivors when it was attacked by geth in 2183. They suffered their first wounds together fighting the geth; it could be claimed they were closer than twins but they're not lovers. They also took their Pilgrimage together on Erinle, where Qetsi almost died after a salarian prank gone bad. Malak helped Qetsi develop the vapor-biotic that cleansed her lungs of the yelik algae she was exposed to. On returning to the Migrant Fleet, they both took posts in the same freighter, Pallu'Kaziel. Malak became acquainted with shipmate Senna'Nir vas Pallu'Kaziel, and together with Qetsi the three joined the Nedas Movement. Malak took charge of tattooing the movement's motto into his friends' biceps during their secret initiation ceremony on a freighter closet. While Senna lost interest in fleet politics, Malak and Qetsi eventually took over the Nedas Movement as its leaders. Their partnership continued after learning about the Andromeda Initiative, with Malak choosing to follow Qetsi as his captain on their 600-year voyage to another galaxy. His friend Senna also joined upon urging from Qetsi. Mass Effect Andromeda: Annihilation 3 decades before estimated arrival in Andromeda, Malak's revival is requested by Blue-7 Sleepwalker Anax Therion. The drell has concluded that something happened on Yellow-9's shift 50 years back, since three of them appear to have been infected with something and the ship currently has a crisis involving passengers dying in cryostasis. Further ship malfunctions induce the mass reawakening of a number of other passengers. Malak congregates with other quarians in their residential zone, playing cards but losing when Anax finds him. He's surprised at the drell's suited appearance, a precaution against infection but made from repurposed volus suits. Malak appears to cooperate with Anax's investigation. He claims he saw nothing unusual when he inspected the cryopods with his elcor partner Threnno, that during Yellow-9's shift they were all in visual range or live vid-feed with each other as per protocol. When he's asked about teammate Jalosk Dal'Virra by Anax's partner Borbala Ferank, Malak informs them Jalosk apparently has been hanging out with the hanar doomsday cult headed by another Yellow-9 teammate, Kholai, expressing low opinion on their seeming nihilistic laziness. Questioned about his other teammate Soval Raxios, Malak describes her interaction with Kholai in glowing terms. Yellow-9 ate their last meal together, where Threnno, Soval and Kholai sang a Citadel song together, and Malak reiterates he saw no one acting strange as they went back to cryosleep. Even unaware that Jalosk, Kholai, and Soval are already dead, Malak's body language still indicates he's hiding something. Anax deduces he was in love with Qetsi and Soval, but didn't act on it since Qetsi found someone else and Soval was already married. Malak denies this until the drell tells him she knows how to love someone who's out of reach, crying behind his faceplate as he reminisces about Soval's sweet smell during Yellow-9's last night. The Truth Malak furtively meets with Qetsi on an alcove outside Mess Hall 2, panicking about their impending exposure and demanding they should rein the situation in. The reason Keelah Si'yah's computer systems weren't working is because Malak designed a computer worm with two directives: raise cryo temperatures to let Qetsi's bioengineered Fortinbras Plague take hold in its victims, and conceal all traces of infection. However, Malak improperly gauged the temperature range, resulting in the virus replicating and mutating unabated, albeit slowly, for decades, eventually becoming lethal to races only supposed to be the carriers. The second directive became hard to follow when infectees like Soval wandered across the ship and infected other Sleepwalkers, meaning the worm took over more and more systems to continue falsifying "normal" readings. The doctor Yorrik is close to synthesizing a retrovirus for the plague. Malak hears of this and is worried his and Qetsi's plans would amount to nothing if it works. The captain assures him they're lucky and can always think up of something later: Malak learns Qetsi plans to scapegoat the hanar Day of Extinguishment cultists and is instructed to return to the quarian zone while she implements her moves. Both of them are unaware Senna and Anax have been listening close by; Malak is already out of sight by the time the eavesdroppers confront the captain and demand justifications. The captain dies later administering the retrovirus to the wakened passengers, with one of her last thoughts being of Malak and what Senna and the others would do to him when she's gone. This turns out to be resolved in short order; Malak is airlocked out of the ark along with the plague victims even if he himself is not infected, his dead crystallized eyes gazing toward the Milky Way. It is not known if he let himself out or if someone did.